Shell Cottage
by Prepare For The Noble War
Summary: One shot that takes place after It Can't Be Over (during Deathly Hallows). Just Bill and Hermione seeing each other for the first time since the war began and how things are at Shell Cottage. Sorry to my readers - still working on the sequel! I want a bit more editing done before I start to post so I hope this is enough for now.


They came with the early morning light. Bill heard a distinctive crack outside Shell Cottage and he choked up, heart stopping. There wasn't any way someone could find him here, not Death Eaters at least, so he knew it was family.

But this familiar worry washed over him in an upsetting way. It was how he'd felt ever since people were suddenly rushing into hiding. How he felt since the very moment Harry, Ron, and Hermione disappeared from the world. There was nothing to do but run out there, prove he was worrying for nothing and it'd just be family, his mother maybe, with good news and nothing worse.

Yet that inkling he had, the dread he felt, was suddenly validated. There they were, suddenly on the beach. Crumpled on the wet sand were three long-time friends with others, calling out for each other to see that they were safe. Bill stood atop a dune in the sand as he watched them realize someone hadn't made it – Dobby.

It was a long and sad process to get the mourners to take in a breath and realize they needed care. Bill took the house elf up in his arms just to convince Harry to stand from the sand and move. It didn't escape his notice that more than one of them were bleeding, or that Hermione specifically was shaking like a leaf and needed both Luna and Harry at her elbows to keep her walking.

He himself was quivering with rage as the story went reiterated, though that moment only came after dressing wounds and sending those who wanted rest into bedrooms. Hermione herself didn't speak, but he saw what was on her arm and listened to what the two friends said of it all, burning their ice cold hands on tea cups but not able to stomach the drink itself at the time.

There wasn't anything harder than watching on and not being able to do anything for them, not immediately and certainly not from his lonely cottage by the sea side. For the day, it was worse than anything to have nothing to offer Hermione but words. They'd obtained a certain level of friendship the rare moments they saw each other that did not include all he wanted to offer her, and when he did offer her (same as he offered the others) food, drink, a blanket – it all went basically denied.

Yet late into the night he heard whimpering from his usual room, given up for the group. Bill couldn't have slept even if he had a place, knowing how near battle had to be if they were there. He stopped staring with paranoia out the window at the dark waves moving along shore to follow the sound. The door was opened but a crack and he heard a sharp gasped that turned into a choked sob as he stood outside it. His feet planted firmly with nerves, but he pushed open the door either way.

The tremor throughout her body was visible even in the shadows, and Bill was left breathless as she sat up in bed, quaking. "Hermione?" He whispered gently, lest he startle her, but she didn't jump.

"I- I just can't stop shaking." She whinged, looking at her shivering hands.

The cruciatus curse could do that, he thought. Bill went to her bed side as her arms wrapped tight around herself, hands gripping her clothes as though it would stop the shaking. Hermione was crying, more than he'd ever seen, more than he ever cared to see again. Sitting slowly behind her, he made a soft shushing noise to warn her of his touch before he did it.

His arms just wrapped around her, pulling her back to his chest. Bill's hands followed the way hers had gone so he was holding her the same way as she held herself. When he made to unclench her lithe fingers from her shirt, Hermione parted them and let him hold her hands from above, clenching onto him instead.

He rocked them slowly, whispering, "It'll end, Hermione. It'll end, just give it time. It's almost over."

It didn't matter that she didn't respond, he'd let her cry. He kept whispering his encouragements.

"You'll be okay."

"You're stronger than you know."

"Just keep holding on and it'll end."

"_I'm sorry that it hurts_."

They stayed that way for longer than he cared to count. If she cried herself dry, he didn't know it, her body still vibrating with pain, little cries and forced back whimpers coming from her mouth. Bill stayed behind her, holding her hands even as she clenched his fingers hard enough to make them go white and lose a little feeling. They just rocked, slowly, as he whispered his words over and over, kissing her hair occasionally.

Eventually her hold on him began to loosen, and her sounds became less frequent. He still didn't stop, not until her body sagged against his chest and his breaths became even. Slowly, even her body went still, the quaking having gone away for a moment.

Bill was careful, moving slower than ever before as he shifted from the bed. He lied her down onto the pillow, then brought the blanket all the way up to her chin. There was not a spec of peace in her expression even as she slept, but at least she _was_ asleep. In a moment of broken-hearted tenderness, he brushed some hair from her forehead and kissed the spot he just revealed. Almost two years after he first kissed her and fell in love with her, and nothing had changed inside of him. He still loved her.

When Bill left the room, closing the door all the way with a muted click, the house was no longer completely asleep, the hall not empty. It was only Harry, standing in the door way of the room he and Ron had taken over.

"Is she alright?" He asked Bill in a hush.

There was nothing he wouldn't give to be able to nod and say yes. "She's asleep. Right now that's as close to okay as she's going to get." He spoke honestly. "You should be asleep as well."

In the morning things were a little better. All the house guests ate, they forced down their tea, but not a smile was cracked. There wasn't a single reason to smile at all right then.

After Bill helped Hermione redress that _word_ on her arm, he needed to be away from it. Not because of what it said, or that it was her. He needed a break solely because it was all that would save him from breaking down and doing something he may regret. He was only out in the whipping wind, standing in the sand, for five minutes before footsteps came up behind him.

He needn't look as the person moved to his side. Part of him knew that it was going to be Harry. "She doesn't like it here." He told Bill.

This could only mean Hermione and Luna, and considering last night he wasn't going to play dumb and ask who. "No, I guess she wouldn't." He agreed instead, looking out at the water.

"She thinks it's too peaceful." Harry went on. "That it's unfair because here you can just forget there's a war, and who's died."

"It's meant to be peaceful." Bill spoke up. "That doesn't mean that it is. I haven't forgotten, and I don't pretend that the war doesn't exist. I'm too aware."

There was a moment of quiet, no sound but the water and wind, before Harry turned to him. "You love her, don't you?"

Bill was quiet.

"I saw the way you held her last night. Everything you did and said – there's something there that even Ron and I won't ever have with her." Harry went on. The Weasley man turned his gaze down to the sands, which may as well had been a confession. "If you're ever going to tell her, don't bring her back to this place. Promise me that much."

"She already knows." Bill looked at Harry, wearing a sad smile. It was hard to pull, to fake, and felt like such a weight. "This is a safe house, Harry, not a home. I know better, and should anything happen, I'd never bring her back here."

The look on the raven haired teen's face was concerned. "How long has she known? What exactly is between you two?"

That was much more than he'd ever be able to word. "Two summers ago, when everyone thought we'd just gotten close; that's when it happened. It was friendship only at the very start. We actually talked about a lifetime together, but it wouldn't have worked at the time. She told me it wouldn't, and now I know she was right. When all of this is over… Well, I don't really know what I'll do."

The boy didn't focus on when, or how old Hermione would have been, nothing. All Harry did was say, "I don't know when this will end, but when it does just be there for her. I- I have a feeling we'll all be with a few less friends and she could need you."

"I'd do that without you asking, Harry. Don't worry about it."

With that, the chosen boy went back inside. Bill stayed where he was until the tide shifted just enough to wet the toes of his shoes. Then he was going back inside, to where a plan was already being formulated.

It wasn't his place to beg Hermione to stay safe.

All he was _allowed_ to do was hope they'd both make it. Then, when some time passed, he'd work up that old Gryffindor courage to find their place. Whether as friends or as more, he didn't care, as long as Bill knew that she was no longer in this kind of danger and pain.

However, it was still hard to remember his place when they were leaving once again, with much more out there to kill them now than there was just six months ago.


End file.
